TheJakartaPost
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Utopian graft-free soccer
"We are a nation of more than 250 million people, but why is it so difficult to get a pool of 11 players to form a national soccer team that is unbeatable in Southeast Asia and even Asia?”Such words are often uttered when people talk, either at formal occasions or in coffee shops, about the country’s national soccer team, which has repeatedly suffered defeats at various levels of international competition
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"We are a nation of more than 250 million people, but why is it so difficult to get a pool of 11 players to form a national soccer team that is unbeatable in Southeast Asia and even Asia?”
Such words are often uttered when people talk, either at formal occasions or in coffee shops, about the country’s national soccer team, which has repeatedly suffered defeats at various levels of international competition. Such questions show their frustration over their beloved team’s inability to fulfill their dream — to become a highly respected champion in the region.
Their expectation is not baseless as Indonesia built a strong soccer team more than a decade after gaining independence. Then the national team reached the quarterfinals of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The team was an inch closer to qualifying for the 1976 Olympics in Toronto. Indonesia’s soccer squad won recognition not only within Asia but also worldwide.
That Indonesia has many great soccer talents is evident in the fact that some Indonesian soccer players were given the opportunity to play for various clubs in Europe, although most of them failed to excel there.
However, the fact that our national soccer team has failed many times to triumph, even at the Southeast Asian level in the last two decades, has led people to wonder about what’s wrong with the team.
As the special report in today’s paper reveals, the major problem facing Indonesian soccer is rampant corruption — bribery and match-fixing — within the Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI), the organization responsible for national soccer management and competition, and clubs under its supervision. No matter how skillful and talented our players are, Indonesia will continue to perform poorly in any international competition as a result of the corruption.
A deeper analysis of the matter, supported by evidence and testimony from witnesses and club officials themselves, has identified that the root of the problem is low salaries, particularly for players, causing many of them to eventually succumb to the lures of millions and even billions of rupiah offered by bookies and bettors, who orchestrate the results of soccer matches played at home and overseas.
Bribery and match-fixing are such deep-rooted issues in Indonesian soccer that they can only be tackled through extraordinary measures, by means of a systemic approach that involves all stakeholders. It is indeed a utopian and gigantic mission but not impossible to accomplish.
